The filing period ended Friday for candidates to officially start their campaigns for this year's municipal elections.

Three vie for Mayor

Two challengers will take on Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt for his office: web designer and local musician Tim Sookram, 26, and Kevin Wolff, a patent lawyer who is making his fourth bid for mayor. Wolff lost to Kleinschmidt in 2009 and twice to former Mayor Kevin Foy.

Sookram says he'd like to be mayor to more effectively manage urban development and turn vacant downtown spaces into shops.

"We get a lot of planned communities, but a lot of them are planned by morons," he said. "I think we should build up more than out [in] downtown ... there's nothing wrong with Chapel Hill growing, as long as it's done intelligently."

Sookram has never run for office before, but says he's been thinking about a mayoral bid for awhile.

"I thought it would be fun," he said. "I saw Mark was running unopposed and thought, 'We can't have that."'

Sookram is a native of Texas and has lived in Chapel Hill for one year. He also sings and plays guitar for Gentle Robot, a "moody, indie rock" band based in Chapel Hill.

Sookram says he wants to win, but mainly just wants to follow the rules.

"Basically, I'm going to try to keep my name on the ballot and not get kicked out of the campaign."

In election forums during the 2009 campaign, Wolff supported finding efficiencies in the town's bus system and not raising taxes.

Nine run for Council

Nine candidates are running for four spots on the Town Council.

Mayor Pro Tem Jim Ward, Matt Czajkowski, and Donna Bell, who was appointed to the council in 2009, are running to keep their seats. Sally Greene has announced she will not run again.

The challengers come from backgrounds including business, healthcare and marketing. Many say they want to help the town find the right balance between environmental and economic sustainability, and diversify the tax base.

Lee Storrow says the focus of his campaign is further improving public transit in Chapel Hill and affordable housing opportunities.

The 22-year-old is the managing director of North Carolina Alliance for Health and is serving on the Initiating Committee for the town's new Comprehensive Plan. He has also served on several boards for nonprofit groups in the Triangle, which has equipped him to make tough choices, he said.

"That experience, really sitting and thinking about priorities in a tough economic time ... it's a similar experience to the work we do in town," he said. "[My] background in public health has made me think about the best ways to provide important services and community that allow our citizens to thrive."

Laney Dale says he is running to maintain the area's high quality parks and recreation offerings and help grow the town's retail tax base.

"We're not very pro-business," he said. "I think that's one thing I'd like to address; finding ways to increase our revenue from businesses, and keep the best and brightest from UNC here in Chapel Hill."

The 43-year-old runs a mobile development startup in Durham and served on the town's Parks and Recreation Commission for three years. Dale moved to Chapel Hill four years ago because of the high quality of life. He said he wanted to base his company in downtown Chapel Hill, but Durham offered free office space for startups, so the company temporarily moved there, he said.

"It's very difficult to have a startup in Chapel Hill," he said. "[With] parking issues downtown, there's a lot of things stacked against you."

Augustus Cho, 53, is no stranger to Chapel Hill politics. Cho ran for mayor in the last election and currently serves as chairman of the Transportation Board and as a commissioner on the Community Design Commission.

Streamlining the development process and making it more fair for investors and developers.

"In order to address creating jobs we need to have a system where the application process has to be more business friendly [to] save time and investment costs, which in turn will impact the cost of housing in our community," said Cho, who works as a writer in Chapel Hill.

"When the last two applicants had to spend almost a million dollars just to go through the process ... that raises costs, which creates housing difficulties for people of average income. While the process was put in place out of good intentions, the consequences and reality have had a detrimental effect on the housing in a particular and the economic base in general."

Jason Baker wants to be on the Town Council to help the board strike a balance between growing the town's commercial base and environmental preservation, and make sure the new Comprehensive Plan is done right.

"One of the reasons I'm most excited about the Comprehensive Plan, as well as revisiting zoning map, is that I really think that it's important that we give developers a clear message about what kinds of projects are going to be in tune with what we want to see in Chapel Hill and where it would be reasonable to look at requests for increasing the density," he said.

Baker, 25, ran for the Town Council in 2005, when he was a student at UNC. He is the public relations and outreach coordinator at Weaver Street Market. He currently serves on the Planning Board, and served on the Transportation Board as an undergraduate student at UNC-CH. He's also on the Comprehensive Plan Initiating Committee.

Jon DeHart wants to see the Town Council better manage the town's money, be more transparent, and advocate for light rail in the Triangle.

DeHart, 44, works as a home mortgage manager at Wells Fargo in Durham. He ran for the Town Council two years ago and currently serves on the Transportation Board.

"We can't be spending more money than we're bringing in," he said. "We're borrowing from out of savings to make our budget work, and that is not a sustainable long term plan."

There should be more transparency in the development process, particularly in the Inter-Faith for Social Service's Good Neighbor Plan discussions, he said.

"If we're requiring a developer to have a Good Neighbor Plan, the meetings should be held to the same standards any other public meeting would be," he said. "We're here to serve the public," he said.

Carl Schuler, 43, wants to bring an independent voice to the board to better manage growth in the town.

"There is the perfect opportunity for entrepreneurial activity [and] business, and just looking at the way growth is managed around here, I think what's needed on council is somebody who can look at the issue with input from the town, its citizens ... and make some decisions with the best information that there is," he said.

Schuler is a registered nurse at the UNC-CH School of Medicine and a naturalized United States citizen, originally from Canada. He is involved with the IFC's Good Neighbor Plan development and is currently the president of the Homeowners Association of the Vineyard Square development off of Weaver Dairy Road.

Election day in Orange County is November 8.